A Response to Terror

Stop All Terrorism: Including US Terrorism

"Throughout
the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be
displaced, tortured, killed or 'disappeared' at the hands of
governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United
States shares the blame."

- Amnesty International, 1998

The US has a long history of financing and training its own terrorist
armies, including anti-Castro Cubans, the anti-Sandinista Contras and
Osama bin Laden and other anti-Soviet Afghan rebels. US presidents have
authorized the subversion and overthrow of numerous foreign
governments.

The CIA has murdered - or attempted to assassinate - a litany of
foreign leaders including: Iraqi General Abdul Karim Kassem, Congolese
President Patrice Lumumba, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh, Cuban
President Fidel Castro, democratically elected Chilean President
Salvador Allende and Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi.

In March 8, 1985, it is widely speculated that the CIA tried to
assassinate Sheik Mohammed Fadlallah by exploding a car bomb outside a
Beirut Mosque. The blast killed 81 innocents.

In 1989, 27,000 US soldiers invaded Panama to seize General Manuel
Noriega (a former CIA "asset" who rebeled against US meddling in
Panama). In the opening salvo of "Operation Just Cause," US bombs
rained down on three civilian neighborhoods - Colon, San Miguelito and
El Chorillo- killing between 2,000 and 4,000 civilians. Some 20,000
survivors were left homeless.

In Nicaragua, the US secretly funded an illegal war against the
Sandinista government by funding the Contras, a group of terrorists
that targeted civilians for death and financed its operations through
drug trafficking.

On April 28, 1987, Ben Linder, a 27-year-old American
environmental activist, was murdered in a Contra ambush while working
on a small hydropower project near San Jose de Bocay. Two Nicaraguan
friends, Sergio Hernandez and Pablo Rosales were also gunned down. Ben
was first wounded by a grenade and then shot at point-blank range in
the head.

"This was not an accidental death," former UN Ambassador Andrew
Young declared at Ben's funeral. "There were eight other foreign
volunteer workers killed before Ben Linder. Approximately 100 medical
workers were killed. And a Baptist Center burned to the ground. There
were more than 300 school teachers that have been killed." Young
concluded with this observation: "The United States of America cannot
consider itself a bastion of freedom and human dignity if it continues
to support the likes of these Contras...."

"During my four years as a Contra director," Contra leader Edgar
Chamorro later testified, "it was premeditated policy to terrorize
civilian noncombatants to prevent them from cooperating with the
[Sandinista] government. Hundreds of civilian murders, tortures and
rapes were committed in pursuit of this policy, of which the Contra
leaders and their CIA superiors were well aware."

The US mined Nicaragua's harbors in violation of international law
and CIA-backed Contras attacked the port city of Corinto. Nicaragua
brought these crimes to the attention of the World Court and, in 1987,
the court ruled that the US was guilty of supporting and directing
terrorist acts. The US was ordered to pay Nicaragua $17 billion in
damages for lost lives and property. The Reagan Administration ignored
the World Court ruling.

The US is not the only Western nation that has engaged in
state-sponsored terrorism. On July 10, 1985, two French secret agents
bombed and sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in a New Zealand
harbor. The bomb was set to explode 30 minutes before midnight while
the crew (including several Americans) was asleep onboard. Greenpeace
photographer Fernando Pereira died in the attack. When France's role in
the attack was revealed, the government was forced to pay Greenpeace
millions in reparations.

What would have happened had we applied Bush's anti-terrorist
strategy to this crime? France not only "harbored" these terrorists, it
financed, trained and directed them. Would it have helped matters if
the US had bombed Paris?